Яма (Куприн) - страница 99

People seek the terrible in words, in cries, in gestures.Люди ищут ужасного в словах, в криках, в жестах.
Well, now, for example, I am reading a description of some pogrom or of a slaughter in jail, or of a riot being put down.Ну вот, например, читаю я описание какого-нибудь погрома, или избиения в тюрьме, или усмирения.
Of course, the policemen are described, these servants of arbitrariness, these lifeguards of contemporaneousness, striding up to their knees in blood, or how else do they write in such cases?Конечно, описываются городовые, эти слуги произвола, эти опричники современности, шагающие по колено в крови, или как там еще пишут в этих случаях?
Of course, it is revolting and it hurts, and is disgusting, but all this is felt by the mind, and not the heart.Конечно, возмутительно, и больно, и противно, но все это - умом, а не сердцем.
But here I am walking along Lebyazhia Street, and see that a crowd has collected, a girl of five years in the centre- she has lagged behind the mother and has strayed, or it may be that the mother had abandoned her.Но вот я иду утром по Лебяжьей улице, вижу -собралась толпа, в середине девочка пяти лет, -оказывается, отстала от матери и заблудилась, или, быть может, мать ее бросила.
And before the girl, squatting down on his heels, is a roundsman.А перед девочкой на корточках городовой.
He is interrogating her, how she is called, and where is she from, and how do they call papa, and how do they call mamma.Расспрашивает, как ее зовут, да откуда, да как зовут папу, да как зовут маму.
He has broken out into sweat, the poor fellow, from the effort, the cap is at the back of his neck, the whiskered face is such a kindly and woeful and helpless one, while the voice is gentle, so gentle.Вспотел, бедный, от усилия, шапка на затылке, огромное усатое лицо такое доброе, и жалкое, и беспомощное, а голос ласковый-преласковый.
At last, what do you think?Наконец, что вы думаете?
As the girl has become all excited, and has already grown hoarse from tears, and is shy of everybody- he, this same 'roundsman on the beat,' stretches out two of his black, calloused fingers, the index and the little, and begins to imitate a nanny goat for the girl and reciting an appropriate nursery rhyme! ... And so, when I looked upon this charming scene and thought that half an hour later at the station house this same patrolman will be beating with his feet the face and chest of a man whom he had not till that time seen once, and whose crime he is entirely ignorant of-then- you understand!- I began to feel inexpressibly eerie and sad.